This Daphny, Daphnie, or Daphnee woman ...is the sort of creature that is so large a pair of blinkered that I couldn’t be more surprised.

What a columnist she must be! She labels me as someone who has not been around. That means that I never played to her pretensions. Her own friends must be wondering whereabouts she exists in wonderland. I have been living on the island well before she appeared. I do take a rest from the local ailing scene by travelling back to reality in the UK every now and then, true.

I met Daphne, or to be more correct, I decided to talk to her for the first time about two years ago, to let her know that she was making a fool of herself picking her nose while idling in her car, frustrated on her blue party’s super roads. But I could not find the right time to let her know of her habit. When I saw her again at Peppino’s a few weeks ago, I asked her for her cell-phone number so as to advise her to stop her bad habit in private, not in the presence of the managing director of TMID, who was treating her to lunch.

She did not answer my two calls, so I thought to myself “she’s not worth the bother”, only to read (TMID, 31 January), that she decided to label me “Labour” just because I resigned from the PN three years ago.

That was exactly two years before Lawrence Gonzi offered me the post of MTA chairman. I refused it, like I had refused the previous offer from the PM to chair another board of another PN government money-laundering huge elephant.

Edgar Galea Curmi insisted I was to lobby with the stake-holders so as to appease his boss, as he did not wish Francis Zammit Dimech to know that Lawrence Gonzi had approached me for the job, which was “up for grabs” according to the faithful Edgar – note the way they refer to high positions – up for grabs – my, my!

This was just four days before the cabinet was to meet to decide on the appointment. All the protagonists that matter told me so – they had already recommended Sam Mifsud, and I was so glad. Glad, because I did not wish for the post. I had decided to retire from working three years ago - about 365 days before the arrogant clique’s offer.

Anyway, this female is so blue at heart that she misses the message and prefers to kill the messenger. I always maintain that a person can only give of what the person has. Got it?

Daphnee, Daphnie, Daphny...(however she spells it) why don’t you retire too and emulate me in my sunbathing and river rides? But then why advise her to do this? She cannot. She indulges in nose-picking, little knowing that she is making a fool of herself delving so absent-mindedly on who to pick on, next.

Want a tissue?



Jo Said

Selmun